


Character Arc

by freosan



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Actually Pretty Fluffy, Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Carlos is the Worst Supervillain, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 14:16:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2028177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freosan/pseuds/freosan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos is a terrible supervillain. Cecil is a pretty good reporter, despite his strange obsession with terrible supervillains and their terrible, perfect hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am supposed to be working on my WIP, but I am not. Here is a bunch of semi-cracky supervillain AU instead. Please accept it as a form of apology.
> 
> Beta credit goes to [Tisha](http://musicandteddybears.tumblr.com/) and the eternally helpful Kuri. Premise is based on a lovely prompt from [Astra](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AstraKiseki/pseuds/AstraKiseki).

Carlos catches the intruder on the fourth trap.

Trap one sounds a loud alarm. Trap two sounds the real alarms, the silent ones that go off in his lab and tell him he’s got someone who’s not going to be scared off by a loud noise. Trap three releases the noxious gas into the hallways, and most people are _long_ gone by the time Carlos straps on his gas mask and comes up to investigate. But this one makes it all the way to trap four, the 200kV electric tripwire, before he so much as triggers a motion sensor.

Of course, as Carlos’s traps go, that one is a bit of a stinger.

By the time Carlos gets up to the front hall, the intruder is groaning and trying to get to his feet. Carlos puts an end to that with a simple kick to the side of his head. While the man is down, Carlos slaps cuffs on him, wrists and ankles. Only when he’s satisfied his intruder is fully restrained does he yank the man upright. 

The man looks up at him for a second in fear. But then he grins, a grin with too many teeth in it, and says, “Oh wow. …Neat!”

That’s not the reaction Carlos expected anyone to have to being shocked, kicked, and cuffed in a supervillain’s secret lair, but Carlos has made invalid models of human behavior before. 

“Stand up,” he says. The man stumbles to his feet, hampered only slightly by restraints on his wrists. Carlos goes to grab him by the shirt collar; there isn’t one. He compromises with a fistful of unruly purple-streaked hair.

Resolutely _not_ thinking about what this must look like, he marches his prisoner down the hall into his lab. He’s never had to handle this kind of thing before. What do villains do in this situation? He should have made lethal traps instead of stunning ones, because now that he’s seen his intruder face-to-face, killing him doesn’t seem fair.

The idiot isn’t helping his thought process, either. “This is _soooo_ great, I never imagined you’d come to deal with me _yourself_ , I was sure you had minions for this kind of thing!”

“Shut up,” Carlos advises. The gushing stops, but the excited, awed looks around don’t. Carlos ignores that while he presses his thumb to the keypad and shoves the man into the lab.

It’s not a terribly well-appointed lab, as these things go; he’s got his bench, his desk, the three high-powered computers that do most of his analysis, his fridge, and a clutter of notes and carefully-labeled experiments past. Not exactly the best place to hold a prisoner. The nearest solid-ish object available is the desk chair, so Carlos sits him in that. The man holds his hands out obligingly behind him while Carlos zip ties the cuffs to a leg of the chair.

This is much too easy. Carlos pulls one of his monitors over so he can watch it and the prisoner at the same time, and starts a scan of his perimeter. 

“Where are your accomplices?” he asks casually, not even looking straight at the man.

“What?” The prisoner blinks and shakes his head. “I don’t have any accomplices. I’m alone.”

Carlos lifts an eyebrow. Either he’s a really good liar or - there should be no _or_ ; no one should be stupid enough to sneak into his lair without backup of some kind. But his perimeter scan shows no signs of life anywhere within the base, or even _near_ the base, except for his own and that of the man right in front of him.

“Are you a superhero?” he asks suspiciously. Even they usually put up a fight, but it’s a more rational explanation for the man’s behavior than anything else Carlos can come up with. Except the gushing.

“I’m a reporter,” the man says.

That is no kind of explanation at all. “And you came here alone? And got through all my security -“

“Some of us learned a thing or two in boy scouts.”

Boy scouts. It should be irrelevant, but the detail rings a bell - he’s read that exact sentence before. How many reporters can there be out there who try to wave things away by claiming they learned it in boy scouts? “You’re that _blogger_.”

The prisoner draws himself up to his full height, or at least that half of it that he can currently use. “I am a _radio professional_.”

“Who blogs. I know those stupid tattoos,” Carlos says, placing the familiarity. “They’re on your site banner.”

The blogger looks down at his chest, where snakelike black tendrils wind their way out of the wide collar of his shirt and down his bare shoulders. “They’re birthmarks,” he says coldly.

“Birthmarks don’t come in ‘snake’.”

“Well, of course not! I know you must have made an extensive study of the subject. You are a scientist, after all!” The man’s icy tone melts away like Carlos has taken a blowtorch to it, and when he says ‘scientist’ his smile suggests a shared secret. Carlos has the distinct feeling he is being made fun of.

“You don’t make any sense.” Carlos glares at his prisoner.

“You’re not the first person to accuse me of that,” the blogger says. He shrugs a little and then, when he can’t move his hands, tilts his head sideways. “These are very good restraints! Comfortable. You’d be amazed how many villains these days don’t care for the discomfort or nerve damage they might cause in their captives.”

They’re padded leather handcuffs that Carlos bought for _very_ different situations than this, and he is momentarily lost for words. “Nerve damage might make you less useful for experiments,” he says eventually. It’s the first thing he can think of that sounds appropriately villainous. He’s never had this particular situation come up before and he’s having to improvise.

“You’re going to _experiment_ on me?” his prisoner squeaks. 

“I’m a supervillain,” Carlos says. “Of course I’m going to experiment on you.”

Carlos thinks his prisoner might faint dead away at that, he looks so surprised and… pleased? That can’t be right.

“You interrupted one of my experiments,” Carlos tells him.

“I’m so sorry. It was hard to tell when I should visit. You don’t make yourself an easy man to find.”

The kicker is that he does look honestly apologetic. Carlos finds himself opening his mouth to brush him off with a ’don’t worry about it’, and then closes it sharply.

“How did you find me?” he asks instead.

“Research,” the man says.

“What kind of research?”

“I can’t give away trade secrets,” the prisoner insists. “What kind of scientist would you be if you gave away your methods?”

“Unemployed,” Carlos mutters. He pokes at the computer to make it run another scan. Still nothing.

"I'm Cecil," the man says, apropos of nothing.

"What?"

"Cecil. Cecil Palmer. I thought you might like to know, if I'll be staying for a while."

"Great," Carlos says. There's still no sign of accomplices anywhere that Carlos has sensors - and he has a lot of sensors. It's possible that his prisoner is telling the truth.

Carlos leans on his desk and pulls his glasses off. The prisoner turns into a blur of bright neon shirt and tan skin. Unfortunately, Carlos's vision is still good enough that he can make out the man's hopeful smile.

"Why are you here?" Carlos asks.

"I wanted to see you," the man says. 

What the hell.

"I know you're aware of my profession." Carlos cleans the lenses of his glasses with the corner of his lab coat; the gesture looks slightly more intimidating than what he wants to do, which is rub at his temples. He can feel a headache coming on. "What made you think visiting me was a good idea?"

"I've been watching you for years, Carlos. I know what you do, of course, but I don't think it's you."

"No, I imagine you don't. I've been reading your bullshit for years. I didn't think it was cute then and I don't think it's cute now."

Cecil gasps. "Oh. You read my writing? Carlos…"

"Shut up." Carlos slides his glasses back on, bringing Cecil back into focus. "Now I have to figure out what to do with you, and I don't need any distractions."

"You're not going to let me go," Cecil says. He settles into his chair a little. "And my writing is completely sincere."

"So you're insane."

"I have no diagnosed mental illnesses." Cecil tilts his head. "Do you not like what you've read?"

"You'd love that," Carlos spits. "If I thought you were serious about all that - nonsense."

Cecil’s mouth hangs open for a moment, as though he’s shocked. Or hurt. Then he says, carefully, “It's all serious. It's all true, Carlos.” Cecil gets quieter, his voice and smile almost tender. ”I really did fall in love with you the first moment I saw you."

"Now is not the time to double down," Carlos warns him. "I can always use you for target practice."

"But you won't. Supervillainy doesn't come naturally to you. You won't kill me."

He's perfectly confident, and the troubling thing is that he's right. The thought of picking up one of his lasers and pointing it at Cecil is making Carlos sick.

"I knew you still had good in you," Cecil says, when Carlos doesn't respond. The words could sound mocking, but Cecil is deadly serious - or seems to be.

Carlos sneers at the reporter. "If you're one of those people who fetishizes serial killers, leave me out of it." He intends that to be the end of the conversation, and ignores Cecil to triple-check his monitors. But Cecil just has to surprise him yet again.

"Your death toll is still zero, so far."

Carlos looks at him sideways. He can't know that. Carlos has been very careful to make sure he's had deaths attributed to him.

"I blew up a hospital," he counters. That was his first big splash, the one that really cemented his place as a villain in the public eye.

"Not a lot of people realized that you were fighting an out-of-control metahuman at the time. You can't claim credit for that. And I have sources that say you triggered all the fire alarms before you even began to fight."

Carlos's surprise must show on his face. The hospital covered that up, he wants to say. No one was supposed to know about the woman with the explosive bones who was being treated there. It was a failure of security and protocol; easier to blame it on the washed-up, unpopular hero than take responsibility for it. Carlos hadn't even protested the accusations.

“I caused that huge accident on route 800. Fifteen-car pileup. Just to steal some raw materials,” he says instead, defensively. That had gotten even more attention than the hospital, weirdly enough. 

“Wasn’t it neat how all the Google drone cars just happened to be on that stretch of road at the exact same moment? And how their algorithms had been altered so that they slowed down the armored truck before they pushed it off the road? I thought it was neat.”

Carlos’s eyebrows shoot up. No one reported on that. Even _Google_ didn’t let that one leak. “How do you know all this?”

Cecil smiles tightly. "You're a good man, Carlos."

"I'm not," Carlos snaps. "I don't need your pity."

"It's not pity. I care about you."

Carlos doesn't reply to that, instead pulling up the surveillance videos for the half hour before Cecil showed up at his door and paging through them, frame by frame. After a short time, Cecil starts fidgeting. Carlos braces himself for the reporter's next observation. Cecil holds out for nearly three minutes before he breaks the silence.

"You were a better hero than you are a villain," he says.

Carlos stops typing. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to see you. That's all."

"Stop lying to me. I will figure out what you're up to."

“I’m not up to anything.”

“Shut up.”

Cecil remains quiet while Carlos pretends to know what he’s doing, bustling around the lab. He figures he can keep Cecil in the secondary lab closet, for lack of anything better to do with him. The reporter watches with intense interest while Carlos clears out all the useful chemicals and potentially dangerous experiments. That leaves the closet empty. Even the light is recessed into the ceiling with the switch outside the door. It'll make a decent cell for now.

"Is this where I'll be staying?" Cecil asks. "Not bad! Very minimalist."

Cecil is probably being sarcastic, but that's irrelevant. Carlos cuts the ties attaching Cecil's cuffs to the chair, drags him to his feet, and shoves him into the closet. With the deadbolts locked Carlos can almost forget that he has a human being in there.

Almost. Not enough to concentrate on his his work, which, if he's honest with himself, wasn't being terribly productive anyway. He gives up on science for a little bit and flips through his surveillance footage again.

He still can't believe Cecil came here by himself. What kind of a person sneaks into a supervillain's lair all alone? Carlos isn't being conceited with the title there, either; he knows he's widely feared. He's more successful as a villain than he ever managed as a hero. Hell, last week he got a mention in a Japanese newspaper, as a possible role model for one of their latest crop of idiot teenage supergroups.

It's not exactly what he set out to do with his life, but at least he has influence. He even has enemies now. He never managed enemies when he was ostensibly on the side of good. Just… bloggers.

The surveillance tapes are corrupted. There's a six-second buzz of static, cutting in over a completely empty hallway, which clears to reveal the image of Cecil writhing on the ground. Carlos watches the section again and again. He doesn't know what he expects, but it doesn't change with a third and a fourth re-watch.

That's never happened before. He looks nervously at the bolted closet door. Is Cecil powered? "Corrupts video feeds" is a pretty damn specific power… it could be something more generally electromagnetic, something that was disrupted by the shock. Experimentation is needed.

 

* * *

 

Carlos leaves the experimentation to the next day. He sends one of his robots through the air vent with a bottle of water and a powerbar at some approximation of dinnertime, but otherwise he tries to put Cecil out of his mind that night.

He should know better; procrastination has never served him well. It was just, well, every time he got near the former-closet-now-cell door, his hand started shaking, and he can recognize a maladaptive pattern when he sees one. It seemed better to sleep on it and approach the subject in the morning with a clear, objective head.

At four AM he accepts that he’s getting no sleep at all. Still, science marches on.

He wakes Cecil up, he thinks, because Cecil blinks blearily at him before he smiles. His purple lipstick is smeared and his hair is sticking up in several different directions. If Carlos weren’t, you know, an evil scientist, his heartstrings would probably be tugged.

As it is he drags Cecil to his feet, and if he’s a little gentler than he needs to be with the hand up, no one except him and Cecil has to know about it. 

He doesn’t have to make Cecil walk far, which is lucky, because the restraints at his feet make walking sort of a slow shuffle for him. The lab has just enough space for Carlos’s books, Carlos’s shelves of equipment, Carlos’s dangerous chemicals/lunch fridge, and Carlos himself; the addition of a second person proves a bit of a logistical puzzle.

Carlos isn’t after keeping Cecil in the lab for very long, though. There’s the other room instead. The room that he hasn’t thought of much since he bought this building, the one with the chair bolted to the floor and the array of rusted instruments hanging from the walls. Carlos uses it for storage and tries not to think about what the last three villains who owned the place did with it. But he doesn’t know where else to put a human being for… experiments.

The chair is a dentist’s chair, covered in the blandest possible noncolor vinyl like every other dentist’s chair in the world, reclining and swiveling, with trays and lights mounted around it. The only obvious difference to it is the heavy straps at the foot, wrists, and head.

Cecil gasps quietly when Carlos opens the door to the back room. But he still sits down without protest, and lets Carlos take his feet and strap him down, leaning forward when Carlos has to get the cuffs off of him. He doesn’t struggle even once.

Every time Carlos glances at his face, he tries to make eye contact. He has shockingly pale eyes. They are so… Carlos will have to make further observations on that.

The last buckle clicks into place, and Cecil pulls a bit at the straps.

"Well, I'm certainly not going anywhere!" he chirps as he settles back into the leather seat.

Carlos doesn't know if he's imagining the slightly forced quality to Cecil's smile or not.

"Try not to scream too loud," he mumbles. He turns away before he can see Cecil's reaction to that threat, such as it was. He'd expect mocking, but if it actually scared the man, he'd feel too guilty to keep going.

He'll start with… he's tempted to start with nerve conductivity experiments, but his hand hovers over the probes for a long moment. So what if it hurts? The man broke into his base. Carlos is supposed to do horrible things to him. It's practically part of the contract.

He hisses under his breath and grabs a tube of cotton swabs. Fine. He'll do the easy stuff first. Spit, hair, and blood, that should be enough to go on with. Figure out if Cecil's even metahuman and then worry about the exact extent of his powers.

When Carlos turns back around, Cecil has his head back, eyes half-closed, throat exposed. His hands and feet are relaxed. He could almost be asleep. Carlos hovers over him, afraid to touch him in this state.

"Are you going to start the experiments soon?" Cecil asks. He's quiet, but his voice shakes Carlos out of his thoughts.

"Yes." He doesn't have to touch Cecil yet. Gloves, right? Sterile procedures are important. Cecil's blood could be toxic or something.

Carlos lets the nitrile gloves snap as he pulls them on and is somewhat gratified to see that Cecil jumps at the sound. A surgical mask completes his protective barrier and makes him feel a little more removed from the situation.

"I'm so glad I could help the cause of science," Cecil murmurs.

Carlos takes one of the cotton swabs out, and steps closer to the chair. He means to force Cecil's mouth open and take the swab; but instead he lays his hand on Cecil's neck, two fingers on the carotid artery. Cecil's pulse is jackrabbit-fast. Carlos counts: five, ten, fifteen… twenty-five beats in ten seconds. That can't be normal, no matter what his metabolism is like.

"You're not nervous, are you?" Carlos asks. The idea is so at odds with the picture Cecil is presenting that the question comes out incredulous.

"I'm terrified," Cecil says. "I am always terrified. Life is a sequence of terrifying events, one after another after another. But now I am also helpless, and that is… comforting."

"You are a nutjob," Carlos mutters. "Open your mouth."

Cecil does it without hesitation. Carlos tries not to let his fingers shake while he takes the swab. He drops it in a tube for later and moves away from Cecil to grab the needle and vacuum tube.

"You don't have to be any more scared than your basic knowledge of reality requires of you, Carlos."

“I’m not afraid of you,” Carlos says. “Hold still.” 

The warning is unnecessary; Cecil doesn’t even twitch when Carlos jabs him with the needle, though he does suck in air through his teeth. Blood flows freely into the vacuum tube. When Carlos glances back up at Cecil, the man’s eyes are shut tight, a grimace on his face.

He takes three tubes, and lines them up on the counter, carefully labeling each one with Cecil’s name and the date. He doesn’t look back at Cecil until he has them filed away in the lab fridge. 

By the time he gets back to Cecil’s side, Cecil has calmed himself down. The only difference is the way he flinches away slightly when Carlos touches his neck again. The pulse is even faster now. Carlos wonders at what point he should be worried about Cecil’s well-being - but no. He’s a scientist; he’s objective. He writes down Cecil’s heart rate and plucks out three hairs from the top of his head.

“If you wanted to pull my hair you only had to ask,” Cecil purrs. 

Carlos frowns down at him. That tone was not an accident, and if _Carlos_ noticed that, it had to be blatant. The flirting is another mystery. No telling what Cecil means to gain by that.

Cecil looks through his lashes at Carlos, smiling gently. It’s about then that Carlos remembers his hand is still laying across Cecil’s throat. He pulls it away.

He leaves Cecil right where he is - strapped down and out of harm’s way - while he files the hair and finalizes his observations, and then for a little longer while he drags a futon and a few blankets out of storage. A completely empty room isn’t exactly the best place for a person to exist for very long. And Cecil looked awful when Carlos got to him today.

Carlos is going to have to stamp out this compassion if he’s going to stick with the evil scientist thing for very long, but he still fixes up a bed for Cecil on the floor of the closet, and microwaves dinner for him before he transfers him back to his cell.

 

* * *

 

Even with the supercomputing power Carlos has at his disposal, it still takes a few days for the kind of genetic sequencing Carlos needs to get a handle on Cecil’s… whatever it is. That’s fine by him. In the meantime, he has actual work to be doing. 

It’s not his favorite kind of work, but it is useful. It gets him moving towards his goals. And he has a video conference with a facilitator of those goals just a few hours after he finishes up with Cecil.

He exchanges passwords and counter passwords with a few layers of security and finally brings up the video chat that links him to one of his most secretive contacts. It takes a few rounds of ringtone for her to show up.

“Scientist.”

“Rochelle. How’s the negotiation going?”

The metallic mask that serves as Rochelle’s avatar is as impassive as ever, but his contact’s voice is triumphant as she delivers the news. “You’re good to go, Scientist. I have the numbers and passwords for you as soon as the cash hits my account.”

Carlos grins and - Rochelle will never prove this, since his own avatar is as lifeless as hers - does a small dance of success. He opens the anonymized VPN he’s had running for a week now and confirms the transaction: two hundred thousand dollars, directly to a bank account owned by an entirely fake identity.

The heavily encrypted file appears in his dropbox account less than a minute later. He saves it onto a thumb drive and deletes it elsewhere.

“I’ll check these over,” he says, and because it’s expected in these circles adds, “You know what will happen if you’ve misled me.”

“I don’t, actually,” Rochelle replies. He thinks he can hear the eye-rolling. “But I’ve worked with enough of you scientist types to get the gist, and I’d make the worst hybrid terror. It’s good info.”

“You’d better hope it is.”

“Go confirm it.” Her avatar winks out of existence, leaving Carlos staring at a black screen. 

Carlos shakes his head, logs out, and starts extracting the files.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s nice having two projects to interest him at once; for the last several months, when he’s been waiting for information or confirmation, the only thing he’s been able to do is go out and try to play hero, or sit and fiddle with his weapons. He hasn’t been able to consider original research since he decided on his plan for the city; everything unrelated to that goal seems unimportant. 

Cecil, on the other hand, is _distracting_.

Carlos finally gets to look at his test results while Rochelle’s data is decrypting. Thing is, they’re inconclusive: Cecil is either not metahuman at all, or his mutation is so minor it doesn’t show up on any of the standard tests. When his computer spits that out, Carlos glares at the data for some time.

Because there’s no way Cecil’s totally human. He was barely out for a minute after the jolt from Carlos’s electric fence. His so-called birthmarks are not any kind of birthmark Carlos has ever seen or heard of. His eyes are not standard-issue human. And there’s the thing with the cameras.

Carlos flips his main monitor over to the security camera feed in Cecil’s cell. As it has for the last three days, while Cecil’s been here, the feed shows only static. Occasionally something seems to be present there, something trying to take shape - it’s ridiculous but Carlos flicks back to his desktop when he sees it anyway.

He goes by Cecil’s cell two or three times a day to check on him and escort him to the bathroom, but Cecil is never doing anything more exciting than braiding his hair when he gets there. Mostly he sits with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up, staring at nothing with glassy, pale eyes. 

The whole base is a Faraday cage, so he can’t possibly be communing telepathically with an outside accomplice, but Carlos still finds the experience a little creepy. So he keeps half an eye on the closet door, sends robots with food and water whenever he remembers, and tries to prod the test results into something resembling sense.

Two hours after the first results, the bloodwork has not become any less frustrating. Carlos takes a short break to look back at the video feed.

This time it’s not static. The image of Cecil is perfectly clear. He’s lying on the blankets Carlos gave him. His eyes are closed, and his head is thrown back, and his knees are spread apart at a wide, awkward angle, his legs still bound together at the ankles by the cuffs. He’s… writhing, one hand fisting in the waistband of his bright galaxy-print leggings, the other rapidly stroking his cock. 

Carlos’s mouth is hanging open. He shuts it. On the monitor Cecil bites his lip, and Carlos’s mouth drops open again, so he can lick his own lips, worrying at a bit of chapped skin. Cecil’s mouth would feel amazing. He’d leave lipstick marks on Carlos’s skin…

Cecil thrusts into his hand, mouthing something, a word that ends in a hiss, his lips barely parted.

Carlos flips the screen back to his notes before he can see anything else. His face is burning. He takes a few deep breaths, trying to will his arousal away that away and think clearly.

Cecil’s a youngish man, he’s got needs - apparently - and he knows Carlos hasn’t been eager to socialize with him. It’s not even unusual. He can’t have any idea that Carlos was watching. This isn’t some part of his weird flirtation/get Carlos to trust him scheme.

But Carlos can’t shake the thought that Cecil was saying his name.

 

* * *

 

Rochelle’s information is solid. Carlos has to stammer his way through a voicemail to her not long after he finishes watching Cecil’s little… display; it’s a damn good thing they don’t use real video, because Carlos’s mind keeps wandering and he’s _sure_ Rochelle would notice something. But he manages to cover his distraction for long enough to communicate to her that yes, good job, everything worked, and she needs to call him back soon for their final preparations.

When he finishes up with that, he takes Cecil his dinner personally. He has to find something to do while he waits for Rochelle to get back to him, after all. Visiting Cecil is expedient.

Cecil’s not spread out debauched on the blankets, as Carlos half-expects; he’s put himself together as well as he can, and is up and pacing slightly around the cell when Carlos comes in. He looks surprised to see Carlos for the fourth time in a day. Which does _not_ surprise Carlos, since he has hardly been the most available of hosts. Carlos shrugs and lifts the plate to show him.

It’s a microwave dinner again. Carlos is not what anyone would call a cook. But it’s at least the decent kind of microwave dinner, and he brought Cecil a couple powerbars for later in case Carlos forgets about food for sixteen hours again, as he has been known to do. Cecil smiles and sits down on the bed.

“I’d offer you a chair, but I’m a little lacking in that area,” he says smoothly. “It’s nice to see you, Carlos. Would you like to sit?”

Carlos hands Cecil the plate and the bottle of water, and leans back against the wall. “I’ll stand, thanks.”

“No, thank _you_ ,” Cecil says. “I’ve been looking forward to a hot meal.”

Carlos looks at the ground, away from Cecil’s apparently sincere gratitude. “Sorry. I kind of forget about things like… consuming nutrients sometimes.”

“It’s all right. Your little robots have been very helpful. They’re so cute, too!” 

The robots have seven spindly, arachnid legs, truly hideous wiring, and tiny spinning blades on the tops of their carapaces. Carlos is once again stymied. “Uh… thank you?”

“You designed them yourself?”

"Yes? Yes,” Carlos stammers.

“Such _genius_ ,” Cecil sighs. 

Carlos isn’t blushing, because supervillains don’t blush, but he’s feeling a little hot around the sort of general zygomatic area. “You don’t have to flatter me.”

Cecil shakes his head. “Oh, Carlos. There’s nothing wrong with accepting a compliment.”

Carlos shifts uncomfortably and doesn’t reply. He feels a little bit like he’s been scolded. Which is weird, right? Cecil is _his_ prisoner.

Cecil lets him squirm for a minute while he figures out operating a fork with his hands cuffed together. It’s a little awkward, but he gets it sorted out before Carlos feels the need to intervene. 

“Do you have many more experiments like them?” Cecil asks, after a few bites of the rice and beans.

Carlos thinks of his many scrapped death-bot projects and shrugs. “I’m mostly a research scientist.”

“Pushing the boundaries of knowledge, no doubt.”

“I try,” Carlos says. “It’s easier to push from this side of things.”

“You were focused on saving the world before,” Cecil says, nodding. “Is that what you mean?”

Carlos shakes his head. “Not that. I was never that focused on saving the world anyway.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I just kept finding these - these subjects that no one would touch, things that should have been pursued, and I tried to pursue them, and…”

“Yes?” Cecil prompts.

Carlos shrugs. “It didn’t work out.” 

“Why not?”

“Are you trying to interview me or something?”

“Not if you don’t wish to be interviewed. But I’ll happily listen. I could listen to you talk for _hours_ ,” Cecil adds dreamily.

“I don’t think…” Carlos stammers. “Yes I do. I am a scientist, of course I think. I don’t think you want to hear any of this, especially if you’re not going to write about it.”

“But I do. Sit down, Carlos, and tell me.”

Carlos sinks to the floor, his back still against the wall, knees up to his chest. He looks at Cecil’s sincere, encouraging smile for just a moment before he refocuses his attention to his hands. “Superheroes have been accepted since the forties, but it’s almost all metahumans who do it,” he starts. “I couldn’t get lab space, or collaborators, or funding. If I wanted someone to back me I should get published, that’s what I kept hearing.” He’s never told anybody this before. He shuts up, and shoves his hands in his pockets to stop himself picking at his fingernails.

“Why didn’t you?” Cecil asks gently.

That’s the thing, isn’t it. He’d been trying so hard, wanting to help so much, but… “No one would publish me. The only press I ever managed to get was suspicious rants from Fox News. I was a terrorist, a plant, anti-business and anti-American.”

Cecil cocks his head. “You were none of those things. You were a hero,” he says.

Carlos looks down at his blood-red coat. “I didn’t _want_ to be a hero,” he sighs. “I’m a scientist. But I wanted to help people.”

“You did help people. And you’re no villain.”

Carlos shakes his head. “You don’t believe that.”

“You’ve only had three large villainous acts that I know of. We’ve been over the first two, and I know how you got the money for this lab.”

“Yeah, so does everyone. Extortion.”

“You could have robbed a bank,” Cecil says. “Summoned a demon of wealth and given it some poor innocent’s soul. Kidnapped that poor girl from Texas who turns everything she touches into gold.”

Carlos brings his head up, mouth half-open to protest. Nothing like that had ever crossed his mind.

Cecil smiles at him. “You’re shocked by the very idea,” he says. “And that is why you chose to extort several billion dollars from a pharmaceutical company instead.”

“What are you implying?”

“That you are a good man, Carlos,” Cecil repeats patiently. “And you may be a better scientist than a hero, but you’re still a better hero than a villain.”

“You’re a terrible reporter, making up stories like that,” Carlos says. He stands up and makes to leave. There’s no good in continuing this conversation. 

Cecil’s expression twists slightly, and then he sighs. “I can only report on the truth as I see it.”

“The truth is objective.”

“You’re a scientist,” Cecil says. “I don’t study science, Carlos. You can reveal objective truth with your experiments, but I can only watch with my eyes and produce vibrations with my mouth that may or may not have any actual meaning, let alone truth.”

Carlos looks back over his shoulder, eyeing his prisoner skeptically. “Is that what your radio show sounds like?”

“I’m not scripted,” Cecil says proudly. “I report the news as it comes in.”

“Right. Of course.” Carlos waits for a moment longer, and Cecil starts eating again, apparently having said his piece. “I’ll leave you to it,” Carlos says.

Cecil smiles a little. “Thank you again, Carlos.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Carlos retreats.

 

* * *

 

Their conversation sticks in Carlos’s head for much longer than he thinks it warrants. Carlos shouldn’t care so much for the opinions of some random internet-based reporter. But he keeps replaying Cecil’s words in his head - _you are a good man_ \- and, against his better judgement, he goes back on Cecil’s blog.

There are _a lot_ of pieces about him. It’s disturbing, he’d thought that even when they were first coming out, the effusive praise Cecil gives his research and his lab coat and his _hair_. But reconsidered, thinking of Cecil’s words as completely sincere, well… it’s flattering, really. He’d gotten so much bad press he’d been sure this was some kind of avant-garde parody. He just couldn’t imagine himself being written about in the same way as the Supermans and Captain Americas of the world.

After he’s been thoroughly unproductive for a couple of days, constantly thinking about Cecil and Cecil’s words, and Cecil’s words in that _voice_ , Carlos admits to himself that he has to do something to calm down. 

He’s used to channelling his baser impulses into science and engineering, and science of the non-Cecil-related kind isn’t working for him right now. There’s not a lot of Cecil-related science he wants to do, though - he’d have to tie Cecil up again, and possibly hurt him, and that will just result in more confusion, he’s sure. But Cecil-related engineering… he hasn't had much call for decent restraints before now, but he's pretty sure he can come up with something better than locking leather cuffs. If he's going to have a prisoner, he might as well do it right.

Putting out the prototype takes just long enough to settle his brain a bit, just a few hours of fiddling with electromagnets and aluminum. The new cuffs will let Cecil have his hands free while he's locked up, but give Carlos the power to subdue him, if necessary.

Though he has the uncomfortable thought that he doesn’t really want to subdue Cecil, even if it is necessary.

He takes the new, smaller, lighter, excitingly shiny cuffs with him, and goes to Cecil's cell.

Cecil is stretched out on the floor when Carlos comes in, his cuffed wrists thrown above his head, his back arched. He rolls halfway over like a cat when he sees Carlos, and gives him a lazy grin.

"Hello, Carlos." He stretches again - the edge of his shirt comes up, revealing a sliver of tanned skin and a piece of one black birthmark on his stomach. Carlos glances away from him nervously, but not, he thinks, before Cecil notices he's staring.

"Hi, Cecil," Carlos manages.

Cecil gets to his feet, a process that takes longer and involves more… wriggling than Carlos thinks is strictly necessary.

"It's not time for dinner yet, I don’t think,” Cecil observes. "Do you need me for more experiments?"

"Not right now," Carlos says. "I have something for you."

Cecil looks stunned, then breaks into a wide, pleased grin. "For me? Oh Carlos, you are just too sweet."

"I haven't shown it to you yet."

"Then let me see!"

Carlos brings the cuffs out of his pocket, holding them up. "They're magnetic," he says. "So you can have your hands free. Sometimes! Not… most of the time."

"You made these? For me?" Cecil asks. "They're beautiful."

Carlos did spend a little more time on the aesthetics of the things than he usually would have.  He smiles slightly.

"Come on, put them on me." Cecil holds out his bound wrists.

Carlos splits the cuffs apart with a click of the remote control. Another click opens them, and he closes the cuffs around Cecil's slender wrists right above the current leather ones. They fit Cecil well, he notes. Not too loose, not too tight. They'll be much more comfortable for him.

Carlos fishes out the key to the leather cuffs. When they come off, Cecil smiles at him and twists his wrists, rubbing where the leather has chafed.

"They're perfect, Carlos. Thank you."

Carlos puts the old cuffs in his pocket, and watches Cecil stretch his arms out and smile. The cuffs look almost like thick bracelets; one of them has a small digital watch built in. Cecil has never complained about, well, anything, but Carlos knows how maddening it is not to know when it is. Cecil touches the watch face tenderly when he notices it.

"I'm going to lock them now. Just so you can see what it's like," Carlos warns. Cecil puts his hands close together, in front of him. When Carlos clicks the button, Cecil’s eyes widen as his hands fly towards each other and the cuffs lock.

“These are certainly secure,” he says, tugging at them slightly. “Very… scientific.”

“Well. I thought they’d be a little more comfortable. And they’re waterproof,” Carlos adds. “Showers will be easier.”

Cecil flashes him a wicked grin for just a moment. “Maybe you’ll join me in them now.”

Carlos has heard that invitation before; he hardly stammers at all as he replies, “I did not make these for - for personal reasons.”

Cecil shakes his head sadly. “Someday you’ll say yes, and on that day, I will be the happiest man in the world.”

“Cecil…”

“Shh.” Cecil moves just slightly towards Carlos. Carlos stays very, very still as Cecil lifts his bound hands and touches Carlos’s face, gently. 

“Thank you again,” he murmurs.

Carlos stammers something in reply that sort of sounds like ‘you’re welcome’, probably, and Cecil lets him go.

So, Cecil-related engineering, _also_ distracting. That won’t work. Carlos is left with no choice but to force his brain back on track by sheer denial and judiciously applied cold showers. He’s coming up to the critical phase of his plan; every day now, he’s setting events into motion that have to go perfectly if they’re to have any chance of working at all. He has to concentrate, and he will.

Getting the entire city under his control without any deaths is almost astronomically unlikely. Carlos loves astronomical odds. 

It’s easier to focus if he ignores Cecil, so Cecil becomes background noise to his life - an occasional duty, nothing more. He misses a few of Cecil’s meals, a few exercise trips. Cecil doesn’t even blame him. Carlos makes a note of the reactions in his Cecil log, though that gets ignored a lot, too, unless Cecil is significantly weird.

At least he knows exactly what he’s focusing on. Carlos chose to move to this city because it was an island. If he takes out the bridge and the ferry, and sets up a decent air defense - he's had the plans for that for years - no one can enter. He'll have to fight off the occasional hero or government intervention, but he's prepared for that, as well; his little robots don’t fire EMPs for no reason.

Fake an evacuation order for the city, blow the bridges and the docks, and he'll have pulled off the cleanest, simplest takeover in supervillain history. He’s got a few people from the local university, disillusioned with their current jobs, prepared to come and assist him with his research. All he’ll need after that is enough people willing to move back in. And they will, once they see how much better Carlos runs the place than the current government.

Cecil will appreciate the plan. Once it's over, anyway, when Carlos explains all the details. Maybe once he's gotten his authority firmly established, he'll give Cecil a whole radio station to air whatever content he wants whenever he wants.

No, damn it. It doesn’t matter what Cecil will like. It doesn’t matter how Cecil will smile at him when Carlos hands over the keys to the building - he’s thinking that big modern glass thing that currently houses the area’s major newspaper. Carlos has _things to do_.

 

* * *

 

Carlos’s first preparatory mission goes off without a hitch. It has to be him, of course, who breaks into the Secret Police’s headquarters; he can’t even imagine asking someone else to take that kind of risk. And it _is_ a terrible risk; so great are the dangers that he doesn’t even know what will happen to him if he fails. But in a black lab coat and a scarf over his face, near enough to the uniform of the Secret Police trainees, and with Rochelle’s passwords and access codes memorized, he gets into the building as smoothly as a cat burglar, obtains his records without suspicion, and retreats with as little fuss as he came. 

He’s so elated by the success of his mission that he starts working on his tactics the moment he gets back to the lair. Now he has the same knowledge the Secret Police do of upcoming metaphysical dangers and supervillain threats; he knows how to plan around their patrolling, and how to disguise the threat he himself poses as someone else’s megalomaniacal plan. 

He thinks he’s been mapping and plotting and inventing new, undetectable kinds of explosive for thirty-six hours when Cecil’s voice comes to him through the air vents. It could be a hallucination, but his hallucinations rarely ask him how long it’s been since he’s slept; they’re more likely to talk about the great things he could be accomplishing if he weren’t so fucking tired.

Carlos ignores the voice for a while anyway - practice ignoring voices that aren’t there makes it nearly as simple to ignore ones that are - but after an hour or so of occasional whispers, and the discovery that his hands are shaking, he decides it’s time to do something about it.

Cecil smiles when Carlos opens the door. He _always_ smiles when Carlos opens the door, no matter how long it’s been. “Carlos!” he says, happily.

“What’s the matter?” Carlos asks him. He just wants to get this over with, get Cecil to shut up.

“You’ve been working too hard,” Cecil says. 

“How would you know?”

“The light in your lab has been on for almost two days,” Cecil informs him. He lifts his wrist, where the digital watch still shines out of his magnetic cuff. 

“Two days? But I thought - yesterday was Thursday, right?”

“Not if this watch is close to accurate. Sit down, Carlos. You’re about to fall over.”

Carlos is, now that he thinks about it, a little wobbly on his feet. He sits cross-legged on the floor next to Cecil's sleeping bag. He stays more than arm’s length away, but the distance is a mere formality at this point; Carlos hasn’t bothered locking Cecil’s cuffs at all over the last several days. If Cecil wanted to attack Carlos, right now, he could. Carlos is nearly certain he won’t.

“Then you should go sleep," Cecil tells him. "But eat first. You look ill."

"I'm fine." Carlos is hungry, actually, and slightly shaky, now that he's broken away from his observations long enough to notice. But Cecil doesn’t need to worry about him.

"Don't settle for 'fine'. You deserve so much more than that."

Carlos has to look away from Cecil's direct stare; it's that or get embarrassed, again, and he's not going to do that. "I'll get you dinner… breakfast? before I go to bed."

"I'm not worried about me," Cecil huffs. "You're running yourself into the ground."

"Shouldn't you be happy about that? You're all about 'stop doing evil'."

Cecil sighs. "That's not what I care about, Carlos."

Carlos looks down at his slightly trembling hands and doesn't demand to know what Cecil does care about, then, because they've been over that. He doesn't want to hear the lie again.

“I don’t know what else to say,” Cecil murmurs. “I suppose I hope if I tell you often enough that I care for you, you’ll believe me one day.”

“One day I’ll figure out what your game really is,” Carlos says. 

“I don’t have a game, Carlos.”

“How can I believe that?”

“Take me down to your lab, and I’ll rig up some kind of brainwashing,” Cecil says. “That might be faster than convincing yourself of it.”

Carlos frowns at him, unsure whether he’s joking or not - but Cecil always smiles when Carlos makes eye contact with him, so it’s hard to tell. 

Cecil keeps looking at him. Carlos has the feeling that Cecil would continue to stare at him all day if he was given the chance. For right now, well, he’s too tired to protest. It’s almost flattering, the way Cecil looks at him.

“May I touch your hair?” Cecil asks.

Carlos blinks. Cecil sits directly to his left, close enough he could easily reach out and, in fact, touch his hair. He doesn’t think he remembers Cecil moving.

“Did I fall asleep?”

“For a little while, there. I said you should get to bed, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. In a second.” Carlos pushes his hair out of his face, and Cecil actually whimpers. 

“Oh,” Carlos says. And then, “Uh.”

Cecil is flushed, embarrassed, Carlos supposes. He holds one hand up at chest height, as though caught in the act of reaching for something. “I wanted to - if it’s alright with you -“

Carlos nods.

Cecil reaches out and very, very carefully strokes Carlos’s hair. Carlos is fairly sure he wouldn’t be allowing this if he weren’t so tired. He was just talking about not trusting Cecil fully. But, oh, Cecil has talented fingers. As he continues, he massages the back of Carlos’s neck, carefully and delicately. Carlos has been hunched over screens and electronics all day; Cecil’s fingers are soothing those kinks out, in tiny circular motions.

Cecil cards his fingers through the hair at the back of Carlos’s head, taking a handful; when Carlos sighs, he pulls a little. Carlos bends his neck, shivering. That is very good. Surprisingly good.

“This is okay?” Cecil asks.

“Yeah,” Carlos says. Maybe in a minute, he’ll get up and go to bed. He’s exhausted. And he thinks he’ll sleep well after this. Cecil pulls a bit harder.

Carlos’s head is in Cecil’s lap, he thinks, and Cecil is still stroking his hair. Whatever Cecil is saying - he is saying words, but they’re so quiet, Carlos can’t quite make them out. It’s fine. His eyelids are getting heavy. He’ll move in a minute.


	3. Chapter 3

Carlos wakes up with a blanket over him and his head still in Cecil’s lap, Cecil bowed over him, sleeping sitting up. It takes some effort to extract himself without waking Cecil up, and the rest of the day is lost to worrying over what it says about him that he let himself fall asleep in his prisoner’s _lap_ , and what Cecil thinks of him for leaving, and why he cares about what Cecil thinks of him. 

He simply won’t allow himself to get that exhausted again. He tones things down a little; he doesn’t need to push himself to the point of really, really stupid decisions. The best day to execute his plan is exactly two weeks away. That’s plenty of time.

It’s two weeks in which he barely sleeps, eats, or acknowledges the presence of any other human being except the ones he’s using at the time. Even Cecil’s smiles get strained towards the end, when Carlos bothers to take note. Cecil doesn’t try to distract him from his work again.

And then… one day, everything falls into place. His researchers are prepared, there are no actual disasters befalling the city. All his robots are in place. His pulsar beams are ready to go. All that’s left to do is get to the top of the StrexCorp building, send out his messages, and watch the chaos.

He’s about to leave the base, his hand hovering over the keypad, when he hears the voice.

He registers the tone before he understands the words - the hitch of breath, the moan that drives through Carlos’s ears and the higher levels of his mind and wraps around his brain stem and under his skin. Carlos drops his backpack to stare at the air vent, from where the sound has come.

Now he can make out the words, or, word: “Carlos. _Carloooos_ ,” Cecil repeats, over and over, a dozen different variations on Carlos’s name, with one thing in common: sounding like the soundtrack to a really good porn film. There’s absolutely no mistaking that voice. _His name_. Cecil is moaning _his name_. Cecil is jerking off and thinking of _him_.

Carlos stops and drops his backpack on the ground. He stands under the vent, back pressed against the wall; almost without his accord his hand drifts between his legs. Fuck, he’s hard. Cecil’s voice is perfect, all deep dark velvet and smooth honey - _that sounds messy_ , says a pragmatic part of his brain, but Carlos tells it to shut up, he’s not good at metaphor - whatever his voice sounds like, it’s things Carlos wants to touch, things Carlos wants to touch _him_. He pictures Cecil’s lips wrapped around his name, his big pale eyes drinking Carlos in, the way his face would twist when Carlos sank inside him - Whoa. No. What, where the fuck did that come from.

Carlos has seen the tapes. He knows what Cecil gets up to when he’s not around. But he’s not so evil that he would take advantage of a prisoner. Is he? He’s sure as hell thinking about it.

He shouldn’t be; he’s got an evil scheme to bring to fruition. He’s got no time for this. But he’s been denying himself any kind of comfort or pleasure for so long, and Cecil is saying his _name_ …

Cecil moans, not even words, just his beautiful, deep chocolate voice ringing out through the lab. Carlos has his zipper down and his cock out before Cecil’s cry gives way to shorter, sharper gasps. He’s imagining Cecil’s hands, thinner, stronger, wrapped around his cock just like this while Cecil gasps into Carlos’s ear.

Cecil’s voice rises, Carlos’s name sweet on his lips. Carlos can almost feel that voice curling around him, building the pressure in the base of his cock, smooth and gentle and insistent. He lets it lead him, slowing when it sinks to a whisper, going harder and faster while Cecil’s voice rises in pitch and volume, his orgasm overwhelming him just as Cecil screams through his.

He sinks to the ground, breathing heavily. Above him, Cecil whispers his name one more time, only barely audible through the vent. 

Carlos is fifteen minutes late for his planned time window, his head is still spinning, and he’s got semen on his best lab coat. There’s no way he’s going to be able to pull this off today. 

Before he goes to see Cecil, he takes a cold shower, effectively ridding his head of the lingering thoughts: Cecil arching into his hands, Cecil leaning over him, preparing him for - Carlos sticks his head under the shower head again and stays there until he’s shivering. He has to be clear-minded for this.

Except, when he gets dressed, and walks to the door of Cecil’s cell, it takes him three tries before he even gets his hand on the handle. No, he can’t do this right now. Later. Cecil’s not going anywhere, after all.

Instead of going in to see Cecil, he sends one of his robots with food and water, as usual. This time he adds another small payload: a tiny audio bug, to be placed in the vent right above Cecil’s mattress.

 

* * *

 

Carlos has to wait a few days before events align so he can give his plan another try. He spends the time tinkering with his weapons and, mostly, fretting. 

It’s during one of the tinkering times that he turns the monitor to the security feeds from the last day. The calibrations he’s doing are pretty mindless, and he could use the minor distraction. Minor, because nothing ever happens; the front hallway is empty, the bedroom is dark, the lab hasn’t been touched, and Cecil’s cell is static as usual.

There’s the addition now of noises from Cecil’s cell; the bug is very sensitive, and it picks up everything down to Cecil’s breathing. Whatever power of Cecil’s is causing the disruption in the video feed, it’s not giving the audio any trouble at all. So Carlos listens to Cecil breathing for a while, and then hears him get up.

Cecil talks to himself, it turns out. He narrates what he’s doing, braiding his hair, making his bed. When he’s through with things to do, he sits down - Carlos thinks that’s what the rustling was - and he talks about… poetic things, the night sky and what happens after death, but his words leave Carlos feeling more chilled than the lab AC can account for.

That goes on for a little while, maybe an hour or two of tape time - Carlos has it set up only to play back when it actually had something recorded. So there’s a little bit of quiet, and then he hears the weird noise.

He’s not sure what it is at first, but it goes on for long enough that he formulates a hypothesis, and when he hears the clatter of metal on a tile floor, he’s certain of it. Cecil picked the locks on the cuffs.

He switches the monitor from full screen to split, and watches the static move from Cecil’s cell to the lab, growing increasingly more disbelieving. There’s no sound in the lab, but the message is obvious. Cecil’s cell is empty and the door is obviously open. And the static stays in the lab.

Carlos looks at the door to Cecil’s cell. He didn’t check on Cecil when he got in - could Cecil have escaped? Left and locked all the doors behind him? It shouldn’t be possible, but so little about Cecil is. 

He has to make sure. He storms into Cecil’s cell, throwing the door open with a loud clang. 

Cecil is right there. He looks like he hasn’t moved since Carlos saw him this morning - he’s lying sideways against the back wall, holding the book Carlos gave him yesterday. He twists around at the sound of the door.

“Carlos?” he asks, nervously.

“Shut up. How long have you been escaping?” Carlos demands.

Cecil sits up and curls back against the wall of the cell. “I haven’t escaped. I’m right here. Are you alright -“

“Breaking out! You know what I mean. You do _know_ I have surveillance tapes everywhere in this base.”

“Yes, Carlos. I did know that.” 

Carlos stares at him for a minute. Cecil stares back, silently, face open and innocent; Carlos doesn’t know how to stay mad at that. Now that he knows Cecil wasn’t trying to break free, he’s just confused. Again. Surprise. He makes a strangled noise of frustration, and leans back against the cell wall. “Did you _want_ me to catch you?”

“I thought you would sooner,” Cecil says quietly. “Even if you never checked the tapes, I’ve been updating my blog.”

“I haven’t been checking it. It seemed… weird. Since you were here, I mean.” Carlos sighs. “Why didn’t you just _leave_?”

Cecil clambers to his feet. “I have no desire to leave you. I’ve told you this more than once, Carlos.”

Carlos shakes his head and runs both hands through his hair. “I know what you tell me. You’re in love with me or some kind of bullshit that I can’t see through to figure out what you really want from me.”

“You don’t believe that, Carlos. You’re telling yourself that because you’re scared, and that’s rational. Being afraid is a perfectly rational response to the horrors of being alive. But, Carlos, beautiful, _perfect_ Carlos, you do not have to be afraid of me.”

Carlos looks up through the window of his forearms. Cecil, still holding his hands spread wide, approaches Carlos slowly, like a cat hunting a mouse. Each step is almost imperceptible, but the cell is small. Cecil is on top of Carlos before Carlos can bring himself to move away.  

When he takes Carlos’s hands, and pulls them away from his face, Carlos is surprised at the pressure of his grip. He’s stronger than Carlos thought he’d be. Too strong for his size, strong enough to take Carlos down if he wanted to.

He doesn’t, though. He lays Carlos’s hands at his sides and steps back, just a little. “Does it bother you that I broke out?”

“Yes!” Carlos says. “How am I supposed to trust that any of my inventions _work_ when I can’t even keep one person locked up?” How is he supposed to trust Cecil - he has no reason to trust Cecil. Less reason now.

“I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m a reporter; I have some special skills.” 

Carlos shakes his head in response, because that’s ridiculous. 

“I’m sorry I lied to you, Carlos.” 

“Why didn’t you leave?” Carlos asks again.

Cecil lifts his hand and gently touches a loose strand of Carlos’s hair, brushing it away from his face. “I couldn’t bear the thought of breaking your trust like that. This seemed the lesser evil.”

“I shouldn’t trust you.”

“But you do, Carlos. You trust me so much that when you found out I was leaving my cell, instead of making sure I hadn’t left any traps in the lab, you came straight to me.”

He hadn’t thought of that. Any prisoner, any spy who’d gained that much freedom, would be sabotaging experiments and planting surveillance equipment and generally fucking up Carlos’s life. Cecil didn’t. And, more importantly, Carlos didn’t think to suspect him of it.

“Last week,” Carlos says. “When you… stopped me from leaving the base. You knew when I was going to leave, didn’t you? You knew I was going to do something.”

“I did, Carlos. It would have been too dangerous, then. Someone could have gotten hurt.”

That doesn’t make any _sense_. Occasional internet access or not, Cecil has been in a cell for the past month; he can’t know anything about the climate outside. “How did you know?” Carlos demands. “And what do you know about the danger levels?”

“I know what you’re planning to do,” Cecil says. “Or if I don’t know that _exactly_ , I know when and how it is likely to go wrong.”

“But what was happening right then that…”

“Shh.” Cecil puts his finger over Carlos’s lips. Carlos falls silent. “Please, dear Carlos, listen just this once. You want to take over this city. You are brilliant, you are so smart and you are so brave, but I fear for you if that is the path you choose.”

“I have to,” Carlos protests. “Someone has to make this city better.”

“What’s wrong with the city as it is now?”

“What’s wrong?” Carlos laughs, bitterly. “There are whole streets no one’s allowed to go down. Sometimes people get incinerated if they talk about the wrong statue. People disappear from their _houses_ at night.”

“These are the realities of existence, Carlos. Surely you’ve studied them, as a scientist?”

Carlos sighs. He has, he knows that any world with metahumans and the occasional demon and sometimes a portal to another place entirely is going to be somewhat inimical to human life, but this _can’t_ be the best humanity can do. “I could do better.”

“Then I trust you, too,” Cecil says. 

Not even when he was a hero did Carlos ever hear those words. “ _You_ trust _me_ ,” he echoes.

“I do trust you. You’re doing what you think is best.”

“I locked you up. I’ve hurt you.”

“I’m here because I want to be. Here with you. I admit I’d hoped… but all I really wanted was to be with you.”

“What did you hope?” Carlos asks. Cecil is… closer, now. Close enough Carlos can smell him, an odd brackish scent he’d swear was a cologne if he didn’t know better. Close enough that when he moves to touch Carlos’s face, again, his fingers brush Carlos’s chest on the way up.

“What do you think?” Cecil counters. He rests his hand on the side of Carlos’s face and waits, solemnly, for Carlos’s reply.

Carlos reaches out - only a few centimeters; Cecil is so close to him now - and rests his hands on Cecil’s waist. Cecil’s steady gaze flickers, Cecil’s eyes closing for a moment at Carlos’s touch. 

He does know what Cecil hoped. Cecil’s never made a secret of it, and Carlos…

Carlos leans forward and kisses him.

Cecil’s reaction is immediate and abrupt. He steps forward, pinning Carlos to the wall, and Carlos has a split second to think Cecil’s turned on him before Cecil’s tongue is in his mouth, and Cecil’s arms are wrapped around his neck, his hands buried in his hair. Carlos makes an undignified squeak which Cecil thinks is the best sound ever, if the way he moans into Carlos’s mouth is any indication.

_That’s_ a strong contender for Carlos’s best sound ever, Cecil’s deep velvet voice resonating through his chest and all of Carlos’s bones. When Cecil pulls away - and it is Cecil who breaks the kiss, because Carlos can’t even think of doing it - Carlos is seeing stars.

“Carlos, beautiful, perfect, wonderful Carlos, thank you,” Cecil says against Carlos’s lips. He kisses Carlos again, once and then twice, more softly but no less passionately. 

“Cecil…” 

“Shh. It’s alright,” Cecil says. He kisses Carlos again, and this time his teeth come into play, nipping gently at Carlos’s lower lip. Carlos’s knees go weak. Cecil, somehow, keeps the both of them standing; his knee slips between Carlos’s legs and he leans into Carlos, pressing them together from chest to hip.

He’s hard; Carlos can feel it against his thigh, and he spreads his legs a little wider. Nervous as he is he thinks he needs Cecil to keep going.

Cecil kisses his neck, softly, just the hint of the warmth of his tongue on Carlos’s skin. “May I?” he asks. Carlos nods, though he’s not quite sure what he’s agreeing to.

Cecil bites his neck. Carlos whines, a desperate, needy sound he’s never made before in his life, and Cecil smiles even as he tugs on Carlos’s tender skin. 

Carlos’s hands jump from Cecil’s shoulders to his waist to his thighs, trying to find something to cling to but not wanting to hold too hard. Cecil disentangles his hands from Carlos’s hair and grabs his wrists. Carlos lets him cross his hands above his head, pressing them back to the wall. He could break free, probably. He doesn’t want to.

Cecil kisses him again, his teeth grazing Carlos’s lips softly, and draws away too soon to pepper kisses down Carlos’s throat. When Cecil tongues the bruise he’s left Carlos grinds against Cecil’s thigh, and Cecil laughs, but it’s not mocking. More fond. “Go on. Just like that.” He grips a handful of Carlos’s ass and pulls him forward, so that Carlos has no choice but to rut against him again.

He’s surprised it feels so good. Cecil hasn’t even gotten his shirt off yet; he’s so hard in his jeans that it hurts, and the friction only increases that pain, even as it takes him closer to the edge. He doesn’t need Cecil to encourage him now - he’s moving almost on instinct, desperate for just a _little_ more sensation.

“Come for me, Carlos,” Cecil says, and Carlos does.

 

* * *

 

Things don’t change quite as much as Carlos would have expected them to after that. Cecil stays in his cell; he never pushes for anything, and Carlos doesn’t quite feel comfortable letting him loose. But he doesn’t lock Cecil’s cuffs again, and he lets Cecil out a lot more, giving him free if supervised run of the lab. 

It pays off well for him. He misses his next window; at the very moment he should be climbing Strex tower, Cecil has him bent over his lab bench, hands tied behind his back and pants around his ankles. It is, he thinks, an entirely fair trade.

The next day, while he’s trying to work, his smart watch keeps buzzing at him - a phone call. He takes it off and tosses it aside without even checking it, and forgets about it for the next hour, until he needs to use his secure connection for something.

When he turns on his computer, it starts blaring noise at him almost immediately. It's Rochelle's alert tone. Carlos hangs up on it. He doesn't need to talk to her right now.

Almost as soon as he's clicked the 'ignore' button, her tone comes through again. Then a third time, when he tries it again. Apparently she's not going to be ignored today. He sighs and answers the call.

"What, Rochelle?"

“Scientist!” she yells at him. "I've been trying to get through to you all day!"

Carlos eyes his smart watch, still blinking its missed call light from across the room. That explains that. "Why?"

"What have you been doing? The data was good, wasn't it? You should have taken this stupid island by now!"

"What? I'm not ready for - what does it matter to you?"

"The Secret Police were supposed to stop being a problem," Rochelle hisses down the line. Her normally impassive avatar changes its expression to a snarling glare.

"You shouldn't be on this line if you're in trouble with the police." This could compromise _everything_. Carlos has his hand on the switch to cut power to the computer before Rochelle stops him with her next words.

"It's not me. It's my girlfriend."

"What happened?"

"She got into something with the Mayor, and today she's disappeared."

"What did she do?"

"How should I know? She never told me. I just know you were supposed to be in charge by now. Where's our revolutionary new leadership?"

 “This kind of thing takes time,” Carlos protests. “I can’t just set things off. I have to have an appropriate window.”

“It’s been a month,” Rochelle says. “Didn’t you say it would be soon when I gave you those passwords?”

“Time is relative. So is ‘soon’.” 

“Don’t give me that scientist talk.”

“It’s the truth,” Carlos tells her. “I’m going to, but it’s going to take time… hold on a second.”

Cecil is knocking on his cell door, apparently having overheard Carlos’s conversation. Carlos opens it a crack, not enough that Cecil can see Rochelle’s avatar, and looks in.

“What’s the matter, Cecil?”

“Is it true that your accomplice’s girlfriend was taken by the Secret Police?” Cecil asks. 

“As far as I can confirm,” Carlos tells him.

“May I speak to her? I might be able to put her fears to rest.”

Carlos looks at the computer screen, then back to Cecil. 

“Hello, Rochelle,” Cecil says.

“Who are you?" Rochelle snaps.

"I'm Cecil. Cecil Palmer. You may have heard me on our fine community radio station."

Rochelle is silent. Cecil looks over at Carlos, his brows knitting together in concern.

"She's googling you," Carlos tells him.

"I have better ways of getting information than google," Rochelle mutters. "Shut up for a second."

Cecil drapes himself over Carlos's shoulders and kisses his ear, making him smile despite himself.

"Okay, your voice matches his records," Rochelle says after a minute. "You've been missing for two months, you know."

"I know exactly where I am," Cecil replies.

Rochelle snorts. "Okay. Why are you on the line?"

"I know your girlfriend. Dana Cardinal was one of my interns."

"Whoa. I did not tell you her name."

 “Cecil know things sometimes,” Carlos says, to prevent Cecil from giving Rochelle some strange explanation. “He used to work closely with the Secret Police. He might be able to help.”

“What should I do?” Rochelle asks.

“Dana’s a law-abiding citizen,” Cecil says. “At this point, as difficult as it is, the best thing for you to do is wait. The Secret Police will return her to you.”

Carlos pulls away from Cecil’s arms, looking at him in horror. “We can’t leave her to the Secret Police,” he says, as Rochelle shouts, “The hell I’m waiting!”

Cecil purses his lips and turns towards Rochelle’s avatar. “You’re not from this city, are you?” Cecil asks her. “As Carlos isn’t.”

 “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Dana was born here. She knew this was a risk -  whatever it was that she did - and she’ll be confident that she’ll be released.”

Rochelle says nothing, and her avatar stares at Cecil, the vicious glare still fixed on its face.

"Cecil, would you please leave?" Carlos asks.

“Are you thinking of challenging the Secret Police for her?”

Carlos sighs. “I already have the plans in place. I’m really the only one who can.”

“You don't have to, Carlos. The Secret Police will give her back. Almost certainly."

"I think I do," Carlos says. "It's not just for Dana."

Cecil’s mouth twists, but all he says is, “I love you. Be careful.”

 “I will.”

“What are you going to do, Scientist? _Carlos_?” Rochelle asks, when Cecil has walked back into his cell.

“Give me three days,” Carlos says. “I’ll do my best. Promise.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Rochelle says, and signs off.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s just a few more days until Carlos has a chance to try again. 

The plan works _perfectly_. This city is far too used to being attacked to question an urgent evacuation; the order goes out without a hitch, and the Sheriff and his black-clad police force have the population moving outwards in orderly lines within an hour. Carlos, meanwhile, moves easily through the streets, his black lab coat and backpack of scientific equipment passing well at first glance as the uniform of an officer on the bomb squad. 

He’s picked the highest point in the city to watch his plan play out. The top of the StrexCorp building offers a better view than anyone except helicopters can hope to get, and he’s reverse-engineered his very own keycard. It takes him a little while to get to the roof - the elevators are out due to the emergency situation, the pleasant robotic female voice over the intercom says, though it doesn’t specify what the emergency situation is - but no one tries to stop him as he rushes up the stairs. And the rooftop, too, is empty.

A few more minutes and the bridge will be clear, and he’ll be able to start phase two. 

Carlos paces back and forth on the expansive, concrete roof while he waits. Even here he can see the evidence of the city’s corruption. The StrexCorp building is at least ten stories taller than municipal regulations allow, and the glass facade is far more modern, and more eye-catching, than this part of the city requires. Cecil hates the building, but he hates StrexCorp more. They’re not a local company; they bought up half a city block when they came in, displaced the residents and local businesses, and immediately started bribing city politicians to their side. Or so Cecil says.

Carlos shakes his head to clear it of these thoughts, and watches the last batch of cars rushing over the bridge. When the last set of wheels hits the bank on the other side, Carlos sets off the bombs. The bridges go up in smoke, efficiently, without any extra fuss. Carlos did the calculations to keep the damage to a minimum. He’s going to want to rebuild after the city is his, after all.

The rumble of the explosions reaches him a few seconds later. There’s not a car or a human to be seen as he admires his handiwork. Even the animals seem quieter, subdued. The only motion Carlos can see is the gentle roll of smoke down the river. He’s ready to dial up his media feeds, put the broadcast with his list of demands out there, when he hears the unmistakable sound of paper rustling from behind him.

Of course Synthesis would show up. She’s the only hero reliably operating out of this city. Carlos fought at her side a time or two; now he tries to plot around her. She’s frightening. But something this big, she’d have to get involved.

Carlos turns to see the young woman striding towards him across the roof, her jaw set, her brow furrowed. She is only fourteen years old. He knows this, but she seems so much wiser than that.

And it’s not just Synthesis he has to worry about. Her theses and metaphors are bad enough, but this time she’s brought backup. Behind her is the man known to himself as the Apache Tracker and to everyone else as “you know, that racist fuck with the headdress and the magic powers”.

A racist fuck in an offensive headdress he may be, but his powers are unfortunately real. Between him and Synthesis, Carlos is going to have a hell of a fight on his hands. 

Let them come. The more loud and showy the fight, the more feared he’ll be by the end of it - and the more fear he can instill, the less damage he’ll have to do.

He flexes his fingers in his pulsar gloves. They’re more crowd-tamers than they are real weapons - the blast of radiation they give off is calibrated to be more like a hard shove - but they’re showy and dangerous-looking, and they’re perfect at short range. For long range he has his spiders, small robots that can scurry up anyone’s leg and blast them with enough light and sound to incapacitate for hours. Now he taps a few switches on his gloves and sends the spiders skittering towards Synthesis and the Apache Tracker.

"What are you doing, Scientist?" Synthesis asks, calmly. She is maybe fifteen years old at most; it's crazy for Carlos to be afraid of her, but he is. Her stride is firm and sure as she comes towards him.

"Behold!" Carlos says. Oh god, he didn't mean to sound that ridiculous. Better roll with it. "This city is mine!"

"Hubris is a classic flaw!" Synthesis replies. She draws a book out of the pouch strapped to her thigh. Ulysses. She's bringing out the big guns already. That's kind of flattering.

Carlos flexes his fingers, bringing the pulsar gloves to life. He's just in time to repel the rising action she sends at him, shooting it back towards her with a bonus boost of kinetic energy. She blocks with a slapdash shell of plot armor but the blast still sends her skidding back several feet. 

She takes one knee and shoots a plot arrow at him. He slaps it to the side and retaliates with a shot from his pulsars. It glances off the Bronte on her upper arm and she steps back with a hiss of pain.

This doesn’t feel right. Synthesis is better than this - Carlos knows that. He’s fought at her side too many times to think he could take her this easily if she was going all out. Maybe she’s going easy on him.

Wait. Shit. Where did the Apache Tracker go?

He hears a quiet voice chanting in toneless Russian, but he can’t fix a location before Synthesis throws a metaphor at him. He scrambles to deflect it with his pulsars, watching in horror as it cracks the concrete roof like an egg. Distraction or not she’s playing hardball; he can’t let himself get hit.

He whistles to call his spiders to him. The little robots skitter into a defensive position around him, raising their odd limbs. If anyone gets close, they'll attack. He'll have a little bit of warning at least before he gets cornered.

 Synthesis lobs another plot arrow his way. Carlos dodges right. He hears the flash-bang of a spider going off, and turns just in time to see the Apache Tracker deflect one of the jumpers with a wave of his hand and a loud Russian phrase. He's too close. Carlos can't let him throw a spell. 

The Apache Tracker’s chanting gets louder and louder. Carlos still can’t understand it but it can’t be good, not with the way the light is wavering around the man’s form. Carlos takes a step away from him, his spiders skittering at his feet, and crashes into a storm of magic - magic that’s reaching for him, trying to bind him

Carlos shoots wildly at the mage. The blast is point-blank and too intense. He shouts as he pulls his hand back, rips the pulsar glove off and throws it on the ground, still smoking - his hand is burnt, and he’ll feel that later.

He doesn’t even notice what happened at the other end of the ray until Synthesis throws the whole book at his head. He deflects it - barely - but the shock of the impact knocks him hard across the rooftop until his feet skid into something in his way.

He looks down and his feet are bloody. He’s standing in a pool of blood. He’s hit the Apache Tracker. 

No… not, he realizes with growing horror, the Apache Tracker anymore. Not with that hole in the side of his chest, clean through and charred around the edges. Not with his plastic feather bonnet blown off and his eyes open, glassy, and empty.

Carlos stumbles away from the body, horrified. Synthesis is coming at him again.

This time she leaps and knocks him over, grappling with him, trying to get his gloves off. He struggles, but her narrative weight is much more than her diminutive size would suggest. She slams him to the ground with the force of the proverbial ton of bricks.

“Dana Cardinal,” he says.

Synthesis glares at him.

“She’s been taken by the Secret Police. Get her out of there.”

“Explain how that connects to _anything_.”

“She’s important. If I don’t win this fight, I want her safe.”

Synthesis frowns, and Carlos takes advantage of her confusion to flip her off him. When she’s not actively bringing her powers into play she weighs hardly anything. He rolls away from her and runs.

He jumps off the side of the StrexCorp building and plummets fifteen stories before his automatic grappling hook catches one of the glass windows. The catch knocks the wind out of him, but the decelerators work. He descends to the ground roughly but without injury.

He lands on a side street, breaks the line and starts running blindly. Helicopters are circling the StrexCorp building, searchlights seeking fleeing figures in red lab coats. He pulls his pulsars off, sets them to self-destruct, and ditches them in the nearest trash can he sees - the blast will be contained and less visible that way. At the next side street he does the same thing with his lab coat. Got to find a place to strip the goggles, though - can’t risk being witnessed taking them off and going from The Scientist to -

“Carlos!” he hears, and stumbles.

“Carloooooos!” the call comes again, and this time he recognizes the voice. He cuts off towards it, dodging right into the alley that Cecil’s chosen to hide in.

Cecil looks anxious, but he smiles a little when Carlos comes to a stop in front of him. Just a little, though.

“Where did you come from?” Carlos demands.

“I broke out when I saw how badly this was going,” Cecil says. “I didn’t want you to get hurt, Carlos. Or.. Or anyone else.”

“This was going fine,” Carlos pants. “Everything was working, I just…”

Cecil cuts him off. “Carlos, the Apache Tracker is dead.”

Carlos barks a laugh. It’s not funny, not even a little bit, but the first thing that comes to mind is a bitter quip: “I know. So much for my death count of zero.”

Cecil frowns and looks down at the ground. It’s funny; Carlos has never seen Cecil look away from him before. “I thought you would be more careful. You always were…”

Carlos stares at his hands. The left one, the one he’d fired with, is red and raw, burned by the malfunctioning equipment. “I didn’t mean to.”

“He was a good man, you know. A horrible, insensitive, racist asshole of a man, but a good man.”

“I do know,” Carlos replies. “He was a hero.”

Cecil frowns and shakes his head, but he changes the subject before Carlos can press him on that. “You need to get out of here,” he tells Carlos. “Go somewhere safe and hide. Not your lab. Synthesis has been tracking my phone; she’ll be able to tell where I’ve been.”

“Why didn’t she show up while I had you locked up?”

“I asked her not to.” Cecil frowns slightly. “Now I’m sorry I did. …No, I’m not. Perhaps I should be, but things are so rarely as they should be. Go. Get out. I’ll cover for you with the police; I can distract them for a little while.”

“You’re not coming with me?” Carlos asks, and knows from Cecil’s heartbroken expression that he’s said exactly the wrong thing.

“I can’t, Carlos, as much as it pains me to say it.” Cecil pauses and licks his lips. “I’m sorry. I love you.”

Carlos should have something to say to that. He always has before. But what he wants to say would seem too insincere now. “Cecil…” 

“Please just _leave_ , Carlos!” Cecil growls in frustration. He has never spoken to Carlos like that before. Carlos can hear the whirr of helicopter blades - soon the police, for all the good they’ve ever done, will be on top of them.

“Goodbye, Cecil.”

Cecil shakes his head and turns away from Carlos, towards the helicopters, leaving Carlos alone.

Carlos sets his lab on fire when he gets back.

It’s not even hard. Just a few gallons of gasoline are enough to soak his instruments, his papers, all of his biological specimens. He works quickly but methodically, leaving no cabinet closed and no bin of junk unopened.

He pays extra attention to the back room. If he can’t get the chair out, and the instruments, he can damn well destroy them. No one will ever use this space for that kind of villainy again.

 He flicks his lighter on and throws it in the front door and everything he’s worked on over the last three years goes up in smoke. 

 

* * *

 

Carlos dives in just in time to shield the bank teller from the debris of the explosion. His danger sensors started pinging mere minutes before this attack happened; he’s lucky to be here in time to help anybody.

The teller - a kid clearly unprepared for the realities of working in banking - gawks at him. “Aren’t you that scientist who blew up half of -“

“Yes. Run, now.” Another explosion rocks the foundations of the building. “Fast.”

The kid bolts. Carlos looks around for the villain. Some metahuman with rock-manipulation powers, Carlos is fairly sure. It’s funny how people’s powers tend to cluster around things like the classical elements. This will be either a teenage girl who weighs ninety pounds soaking wet or a guy eight feet tall with muscles the size of Carlos’s head.

A lot of metahumans, actually, fall into those categories. It’s funny how that works but Carlos doesn’t have any good statistics yet. He’ll get there eventually.

The floor rocks once again and this time, the wall behind him cracks. Through the dust and the faint fog on his safety goggles, he sees a small, wiry shape, silhouetted against the sunlight coming in. Teenage girl. At least those are a little easier to fling around, if he can catch her. He pulls his magnetized, improved bolas out of his lab coat pocket and takes a defensive stance, feet wide so he can balance if she rocks the earth again.

She gets a good look at his face before he can see hers, and stops in her tracks.

“You,” she sneers. “The Scientist. Now you’re down to robbing banks?”

Carlos doesn’t recognize the voice, the face, or the blonde hair. He has no data. And he can still hear scrabbling behind him, the sounds of people escaping - he has to stall for a little while.

“I’m just here to stop you,” he says. 

“You _are_ the worst villain we’ve ever had.” She walks towards him; her steps make the ground shake slightly. Is that on purpose or does she have that little control? 

Carlos glances around the room. He doesn’t see anyone, but maybe he can get a little bit more time. “I used to be. I’m not anymore,” he says, slowly.

The girl circles around a crack in the floor, keeping her eyes on Carlos the whole time. “You did something that wasn’t a failure?”

She darts towards him, fast for an earth-mover, and tries to shoulder-check him into the ground. Carlos sidesteps and throws his own kick at her leg. He misses. Her next punch hits him in the shoulder, jarring him to his toes.

He _cannot_ let her close with him. He jumps back and up, onto a fallen piece of roofing, as far away from her as he can get in the confines of the ruined bank lobby.

“I’m not a villain anymore!” he calls to her. “You can quit!”

“You didn’t have the stomach for it,” she sneers. She takes a step towards him, deliberate and heavy, her foot sinking inches into the marble.

Carlos grabs his bolas again, starting the heavy metal balls swinging at his side. “Some things I don’t want to be able to handle.”

She stomps on the ground, sending a rush of seismic activity straight at Carlos’s perch. He jumps, still swinging his weapon, even as he hits the ground hard on one knee.

He throws his bolas overhand, and they loop tightly around her legs. She laughs at him, reaches down, and falls over screaming as the electric shock hits her.

She’ll be fine. Metahumans can take truly ridiculous amounts of damage. But she’ll be out of commission for a day at least, long enough to get her someplace where her powers can be neutralized while she learns to handle them.

Carlos picks his way towards her, intending to get her into the recovery position, but halfway through the ruined lobby, he hears the hiss and crackle of paper, and smells a faint hint of old books on the wind. Synthesis is here. He stops, poised to run.

“Scientist, what are you doing here?” the young heroine asks as she approaches. 

“No one was hurt,” Carlos assures her first thing. “This young lady is the cause of the property damage.” Carlos motions at the unconscious girl. “Get her somewhere she can get help. She’s not bad. She’s just scared. And she can’t hurt anyone right now.”

“Do you expect me to thank you, villain?”

“No. I’m…” he searches for words that he thinks will reach her. “I’m working on my redemption arc.”

Synthesis’s sharp brown eyes pierce his very soul - one of the many cliches she has at her disposal. She doesn’t like to rely on them, but, she told him once, sometimes they’re there for a reason. He holds her gaze despite the discomfort as she rummages around in his head.

“Then I won’t be your antagonist,” she says, after several long moments. “But don’t let the cops catch you here.”

Carlos recalls his weapon to his hand and bolts.

Synthesis doesn’t bother him again after that. Actually, no one does. He doesn’t get _helped_ , but he doesn’t get attacked, either. It’s like he’s too shameful to mention. It’s better than the alternative, but it’s still kind of depressing.

Cecil is the only one who still talks about him at all. It starts out with detailed reports on the rebuilding effort - StrexCorp was kind enough to repair a lot of the damage Carlos did; Dana Cardinal has been released from Secret Police custody and is once again working at the radio station - but it eventually turns to small warnings about Carlos’s movements, interspersed with news about all the other minor villains and heroes. Carlos likes listening to it. Cecil’s voice goes soft when he talks about Carlos, and that makes him think that maybe those weeks where Cecil said he loved him weren’t just a nice dream.

But despite all the tracking Cecil’s apparently been doing, it takes Carlos six months to see Cecil again. As he walks away from the scene of another stopped crime - the police have started to turn a blind eye to him if he leaves fast enough, though he’s still technically wanted - he runs into the reporter down an alley.

Literally runs into. Carlos’s reflexes aren’t _that_ bad - Cecil simply stepped out of the shadows directly in front of him. Carlos stumbles, reaches for his bolas, and then recognizes the face.

Cecil looks good. His hair’s all one color again, a deep red this time, and his lipstick is perfect. He looks like a person who’s eaten enough in the last month. Possibly even a person who’s doing well with his life.

“Cecil?”

“Carlos!” Cecil sings out, like he’s surprised to see him, even though Carlos knows he must have planned this. “How have you been?”

“You’d know that better than me,” Carlos says. 

Cecil smiles gently. “You’re not doing this for me, are you?”

“No. Because of you, maybe?” Carlos says. Then he shrugs. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”

“You have, really?” Cecil nearly squeaks. Carlos almost grins at the enthusiasm.

“I can’t make up for what I did, but I can try,” Carlos says. “I’m glad you caught me - I’ve wanted to thank you. You helped me realize that.”

Cecil nods, encouraging, but remains quiet. It’s effective in making Carlos feel the need to fill the silence.

“I’m not a hero. But I’m not a villain, either,” he adds quietly.

Cecil regards him for a long moment. “Where are you based, these days?” he finally asks.

Carlos shrugs. “Here and there. You know. …Around.” Wherever he can park for the night without cops finding him, but he doesn’t feel the need to tell Cecil that.

“You’re not taking care of yourself, are you?” Cecil tuts. “You’ve lost weight. And your hair…”

Carlos runs his hand self-consciously over the bird’s nest masquerading as his hair. “I’ve been moving around a lot.”

“So you said.” Cecil takes a half-step towards him, aborts, sighs. “Would you like to come back to my apartment?” When Carlos blinks at him, he adds, “My couch is open. I won’t expect anything from you.”

“Are you sure?” Carlos asks. He can’t quite believe that Cecil would want to be that close to him again. For a while there he’d wanted an entire city between them himself. 

“I miss you,” Cecil says. Open, straightforward, the way he always has been about Carlos.

Carlos goes with him.


End file.
